Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Sydney, Australia

I am finally here to tell you all about our trip to Sydney! Sorry it has taken me so long! We were suppose to be heading back to Reno, NV from Portland, OR yesterday. We have been staying with my brother and sister in law as you probably know for the last week and Matt has been trying to get a job so we can stay up here. Well, he got one! Right now, its just a trial and its not lasting too long, so we aren't in any position to be looking to move up here yet. But for now its a little extra income coming in, and hopefully it will go really well and we can end up staying longer. So that is where things stand for now, and I will keep you all updated! But I promise I am getting back into the groove of things, and I will be posting more often now! Thank you for your patience with me and getting myself settled back into US life :)

Now onto Sydney! Some really friendly people we met in Sydney (which was pretty much everyone!!!) kindly took the above picture of us. Sydney was definitely one of our favorite cities we have ever been to! Okay, so we haven't been to that many cities, but Sydney is definitely one of our faves out of the ones we have seen! It is just beautiful, clean, large enough, and just amazingly beautiful (did I say that already?!)

This is the view of the skyline from a ferry. Just stunning.

I have never really been on a food holiday, but man it is a lot of fun if you ever get the chance to do it, I highly suggest it. We planned everything around eating, and it was by far the best holiday I have been on! From straight off the plane, to the minute we left, all we could think about was food, and we hit tons of popular food places such as Max Brenner Chocolate Bar, Adriano Zumbo's Patissier, and...

Jamie Oliver's restaurant: Jamie's Italy. Oh man! This was so surreal and amazing to be eating at Jamie's restaurant. It definitely looked like he had a hand in everything, including the decor and food styling. The whole bit just gave off a total Jamie flare.

Now you do know who Jamie Oliver is right? Is it someone that only the UK and the southern half of the world know? Or is he popular here in the USA too?? I really don't know because I found him in New Zealand (well not him as in the person of Jamie... I could only wish that lol), and bought one of his cookbooks (which I had to sell before coming back home *sad face*) so naturally I became obsessed with his cooking. Thanks to my sweet friend Tiff in New Zealand (I miss you Tiff!!!!), I was able to watch his shows, and read some of the cookbooks I didn't have, including Jamie's America. I cant wait to get my hands on those cookbooks again!

Anyway, I was an idiot and had my camera on the wrong settings when we were in Jamie's restaurant (I know! I am still learning how to use a camera properly!), and the lighting was awful anyway, so unfortunately I didn't get any good pictures, but the food was fantastic! I highly recommend it if you are ever in Sydney! Visit the restaurant for some amazing and very reasonably priced food!

Walking around the city was so much fun! This one was taken from the Botanic Gardens, which was absolutely stunning. We saw so many fun animals there, including some wild cockatoos!

This is a cockatoo, and I have never seen one in the wild! But I have had one in my house! My family used to own one, and he was my favorite pet ever! They are such sweet birds (my brother would disagree I'm sure), and quite large birds. They live to be between 80-100 years old, and they like to mimic people's words. Ours, named Casper (fitting right?), loved to laugh and his favorite word was Carla. That could be why he was my favorite pet ;)

Needless to say I was super excited when we saw these in the wild. And there wasn't just one!

No there wasn't just three!

There were easily 30-40! It was amazing to see these in the wild! They seem to yell at each other a lot. They are quite noisy, and although they scream loudly (possibly why my brother hated Casper), they loved to travel in packs. It was definitely wild to see them! And I'm sorry if this is no interest to you haha! I was just fascinated by seeing a pet that I owned in packs in the wild!

Do you want to know what else we saw in the Botanic Gardens? You might not... you may want to look away for this next picture if you are creeped out easily. I promise I'll only show one! Okay, here it comes...

Ginormous spiders! When we showed this picture to some people, they said that there is no size comparison; that we should have put our hands next to him to compare! Um... NO WAY! This guy was - not kidding even a little - as big as my hand!

In. Sane.

It is true what they say about Australia, even in the biggest city! Large spiders (oh but don't worry, its the little spiders that'll kill ya!), and all of the world's deadliest animals. Yep, right there is reason enough not to move there (sorry Matt, Tiff and Kate!)

Ok, I will move on from there... even though you shouldn't move there, you SHOULD visit!

The city was so much fun! And when you walked down certain alleys, you would find things like this, which we dubbed Birdcage Alley. We were certain it would take us to Hogwarts, but alas, we are still in the Muggle world. Until next time...

There were also tons of little cupcake shops and bakeries all over the city! We planned on making it to all of these, but we were already jam-packed with food places to stop into. I guess we will just have to plan another trip there!

We did get to have some good ones though, like Guylean's Chocolate. Not too bad, but Zumbo will always be my favorite :)

We saw some fun animals in the zoo (I don't even know what this little guy was called)...

But we didn't even need to be in the zoo to see other fun animals! These little parakeets (lorakeets?!? I'm not sure), would sit on these bars above restaurants, and watch as the people were leaving their tables and...

Take the sugar packets out of the container, rip it open with their beaks, and eat the sugar out of the packets! It was a trip to watch! Who knew that these beautiful creatures would be the pigeons of Sydney! And we saw them all over the city. So funny!

Sydney was also stunning at night!

Well guys, I hope this wasn't a boring post. I hope you enjoyed my recap of Sydney, and please tell me if you ever get the chance to visit Sydney! I would love to give you some suggestions and even get you in touch with some good friends who have lived there :)

Thanks guys and I'm looking forward to seeing you again this Friday for more Fresh Friday posts. Are you guys liking those? I sure hope so! Always let me know if you have any ideas for posts :)

I'm glad you guys had so much fun in Sydney and hope you come back and check the rest of Australia out some time!! Not sure if your interested but that spider is an orb weaver and yeah they are pretty big eh? I ran through a web when I was a kid and scared the living day lights out of myself :DI'm glad you guys got to see some of the wildlife though it really is one of the best things about Oz :)Miss you guys but I know you will be enjoying being back home :(

Not a boring post at all. Can't wait to see all the rest of the pictures and hear all about your trip. Even though you are back in the states, sure have missed seeing your faces, but am quite happy you are doing well in Portland with the other half of the family. Miss you all!

Hi Carla!I'll be going to Sydney soon too and I can't wait to try out Jamie's restaurant, I didn't know he had one there too until I saw your post:) Did you have to wait long to get a seat? And was there any dish you'd high recommend? Btw, where is that bird cage alley? It looks so cute!!

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